The public has now come to understand that “search” is a key part of using the Internet effectively. More importantly, accurate search allows people to access information they need (the “wheat”) without providing them lots of things they do not need (the “chaff”). As the amount of information available to most individuals, whether on a local desktop or on the Internet, increases each year, the need for effective search becomes even more important.
Search for typical Internet content has advanced very far, as exemplified by the Google PageRank system. This system provides search results in the form of a ranked list of results, where the most relevant results are displayed at the top of the list. The system depends in part on the relationships between various web pages so that pages that are referenced by other pages get a higher ranking, and pages referenced by other pages having a high ranking get an even higher ranking.
Search is also an important part of mobile data communication, such as that by cellular telephone. For example, users of mobile devices have all the needs of users at desktop computers and also have needs for particular types of searches, such as for restaurants, hotels, and various other local search options. In addition, mobile users want to receive documents or web pages that can be displayed on a mobile device. Because mobile devices may have lower resolution or smaller displays, limited memory, and relatively low bandwidth that is relatively costly, such devices may be unable to receive or display regular, non-mobile documents. One solution is to place mobile devices in a “walled garden” so that they can only access a relatively small subset of the documents on the Internet. This approach may have the desirable effect of forcing users into products and services sponsored by the telecommunication service provider, but it has the definitely undesirable effect of denying users access to documents they may want and need.
Thus, opening users up to the entire mobile web is a great benefit. However, in many ways the mobile web is not as developed as the non-mobile web, e.g., there are fewer web pages, and the pages that do exist are often in narrow areas (e.g., sponsored by major commercial sites like Amazon). In addition, mobile documents are often significantly smaller than their non-mobile counterparts, and thus may have less text or other content upon which a decision about the relevance of a document may be based. While it might seem that the smaller size of the mobile web would make search easier because there is less “chaff,” it is in many ways more difficult because factors needed for proper ranking of results are not available in the less-developed mobile web. Thus, there is a need for improved search for mobile documents.